


Memories

by L0NE



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Chapter 5 Spoilers, F/M, Multi, Not A Happy Ending, memory gaining, takes place before and then during chapter 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L0NE/pseuds/L0NE
Summary: When Arvis returns to their room that late that night, Deirdre is laying in bed, still awake, running through the newfound memory for the hundredth time that day. She’s still thinking about the pink haired girl, and how kind she was, and how she can only remember the first part of her name.





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> god i know theres probably 500 “deirdre gaining her memories back” fics but heres mine anyways. if this fic gets confusing in any way, dont worry, thats the deirdre-confusion talking.

The first time Deirdre remembers something, _really_ remembers something, she’s picking up a cup of tea set out by one of the maids earlier that morning, gently bringing the ceramic to her lips as she stares out her bedroom window.

 

The day originally starts out normal, with nothing out of the ordinary occurring from the moment she wakes up until the moment she decides her tea has cooled off enough for her to sip. She’s awakened by her fiance, Arvis, as he dresses in the earliest hours of the day, and, after he leaves, she sits around empty mindedly with nothing in particular to do. Losing her memories has crippled her in many ways— one being that she cannot remember anything she once did to keep herself entertained, only finding interesting moments in the day as her maids bring in food or drink for her and leave.

 

So, when a maid brings in a tea cup and pot for her to drink from, Deirdre considers that her excitement for the day, and she’s eager to try it. And when the maid leaves, Deirdre pounces onto it and pours herself a cup to have a sip.

 

However, when the liquid reaches her mouth, her head suddenly throbs, and she winces as she puts the cup down onto her nightstand beside her, preparing herself to deal with a brief encounter with the throbbing in her head.

 

Pains like this are frequent with her. She’s spoken with Arvis about such things, and he surmises that it’s most likely her amnesia causing the pain she feels (and he seems distressed by this fact, much more than she is, perhaps because he loves her so much and is worried for her health). As long as she can remember since coming under his care, meaning a little under six months, these small pains have come and left her infrequently, giving her usually nothing but a ruined moment in any random day. She hates them, but there’s nothing she can do about the pain except to wait it out, and it tends to dissipate after a moment or two. It’s only the beginning of the sudden attack that’s the most painful part of it all.

 

That is, until now.

 

The searing pain in Deirdre’s head continues getting worse and worse, which has never happened to her before. She finds herself having trouble focusing on anything but the pain ringing in her ears. Part of her wants to stumble out of bed to find a medic, while another can’t even stomach the idea of trying to move.

 

She brings her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them, groaning as she puts her head down and squeezes at her skin so as to not make another sound. The one thing she doesn’t want to do is attract unnecessary attention from any maid that happens to pass by.

 

Frustrated, she presses into herself as if she can make herself shrink away somehow, and just waits for the pain to pass like it always does.

 

She waits.

 

Waits.

 

Waits.

 

Waits—

 

“Deirdre, you’re so interesting, you know?”

 

A voice she doesn’t recognize addresses her, close by.

 

When Deirdre turns her head upwards and looks to her right, she’s greeted by the figure of a pink haired girl sitting on the bed with her.

 

Silence at first. Deirdre blinks once. Twice. The girl does not disappear, she remains at the edge of her bed.

 

The stranger’s body is turned away from her, so Deirdre can only see the side of her face and the orange shawl draped on her shoulders, the covers of the bed obscuring her dress and anything under her torso. From the way her left hand moves back and forth, rising and falling in a rhythm, then suddenly pulling back with a needle in her hand, Deirdre assumes she must be sewing or mending something in her opposite, unseen hand.

 

Is she hallucinating? Seeing a ghost? There’s no way such a person could ever get into her room undetected, what with how many guards Arvis puts outside of their chambers. Yet, here this girl sits, as casual as could be, as though she’s supposed to be here all along. Any normal person would be confused by this unnatural occurrence, but the laugh in the girl’s throat and the ease of her shoulders calm Deirdre into simply staring at her, the pain in her head slowly beginning to fade.

 

Something feels different about this girl, and it prevents her from seeing her in a negative light.

 

The stranger won’t look Deirdre in the eye, and instead focuses on the task in front of her. She continues mending the unseen fabric and once again, she speaks, “I mean, my husband and I, we met in a very average way. He’s been friends with my brother forever, you see, and we fell in love,” She nods to herself as she pulls the needle between her fingers, as though pleased by her craftsmanship, “But then! Brother, the late bloomer, decided to show me up, being engaged to you as though you two were lovers in a fairytale. It’s lovely, but I’m a little jealous!”

 

Deirdre runs this comment over in her mind. So this pink haired girl is Arvis’s sister? Arvis never mentioned her before, but he rarely likes discussing his family, so the thought isn’t farfetched. She can see the resemblance, somewhat— the confidence in her voice, the playfulness she had that Arvis tended to show her in secret, even the curve of her face that she can see from her position. She wants to speak to her, to ask her questions about her or Arvis or maybe even her own missing memories, but she decides to wait, to see what will happen.

 

“You’ll be a beautiful bride. I’m sure of it!” She says, then puts down her needle on the bed, adjusting the item in her possession with both hands now. Then, she nods to herself, “Alright, it’s all good.”

 

The girl turns around completely, and it takes Deirdre back a bit. Though this girl might be Arvis’s sister, her complexion is a little more tanned than her brother’s pale skin, and her eyes are much wider, much more innocent. She must be a much younger sibling than she imagined her to be, or maybe she’s only a half-sister, or maybe she calls Arvis her brother out of bond, not blood, and he did similar for her, or… There are so many possibilities now that her head begins to swim again, and she makes herself shake off the confusing thoughts.

 

In the girl’s hands, she gently carries a small white handkerchief, which she holds out to Deirdre with a smile, “Here. I fixed it up just like you wanted! Even stitched your name into it.”

 

Deirdre looks down to see in neat cursive, a light pink thread has been woven into the white fabric to spell out _Deirdre._

 

She had never seen this cloth before, had never even thought she had owned it, yet now, it felt so familiar to her that she wonders how she had gone this long without it in her life at the castle, wondering where she had misplaced such an item.

 

“T-Thank you…” Deirdre finds herself mumbling, and against her better judgement, she reaches out and brings her hands to the handkerchief, pressing down into the softness of it with the tips of her fingers.

  
  


And then the girl disappears, as does the cloth, and Deirdre realizes she is sitting in bed alone, gripping at empty air.

  
  


She is silent for a very long time, staring at the vacant spot on her bed where the girl once sat.

 

Could that have been a memory? Was that what it was like to truly remember something, to drag a forgotten memory to the surface?

 

She tries to focus on what she had just seen, determined to get more out of what she’d witnessed than just the piece of fabric. The pink haired, small, friendly girl speaking with her, the short girl, the girl who must somehow know Arvis, the girl who helped her per her apparent request…

 

She has the beginning of a name, which appears and dances on her tongue for a moment out of nowhere;

 

“Eth…”

 

But then it’s gone. So she continues to mull over the girl in her mind.

  
  
  
  


When Arvis returns to their room that late that night, Deirdre is laying in bed, still awake, running through the newfound memory for the hundredth time that day. She’s still thinking about the pink haired girl, and how kind she was, and how she can only remember the first part of her name. She stirs in confusion when the light pours in from the hall outside onto their bed, lifting her head up from her pillow to look at Arvis, who smiles at her and gently closes the door behind him, shrouding them in darkness again.

 

“Did you not like the tea?” Arvis asks, shedding his uniform as he moves to their dresser, passing Deirdre’s cup of tea from earlier in the morning, which still sat full and untouched. His voice isn’t harsh or reprimanding, but comforting and soft, something only Deirdre gets to hear these days, and it fills her heart with love for him. He unbuttons his shirt and slips on the first piece of nightwear he can grab from a half-opened drawer, “It’s imported from Leonster, actually, so it isn’t what you usually drink. I apologize if it wasn’t to your liking.”

 

Though he can’t see her in the darkness, Deirdre still shakes her head, “No, I… I didn’t feel well today, so…” Her voice trails off.

 

Arvis raises an eyebrow, “It wasn’t your headaches again, was it?”

 

“...Mmmn.”

 

A sigh. Deirdre hears the fumbling of fabric, and she can tell Arvis is much more rushed and anxious than he was just a second ago, “These damn medics,” He grumbles, his voice wavering, “Can’t even take care of my fiancé properly…” He’s obviously upset now, and Deirdre sits up in her spot, reaching out in the direction of his voice to try to grab hold of him and calm him down. He always gets so upset whenever her amnesia is mentioned, and she knows it pains him just as much as it pains her, and she wants to recall everything just as badly as he wants her to.

 

So she takes a deep breath and speaks, “W-Well… About your sister, I—”

 

Arvis continues shifting, cutting her off, “Oh. I suppose you must have heard one of the maids speaking of Azel today. What with those rebel brutes running around, and Azel being among them...” He sighs.

 

Deirdre blinks. _Azel?_ She’s sure the name of the girl started with _Eth_ , she’s more sure about that than anything else. She hadn’t even spoken a maid today to begin with, even the one that had brought her tea.

 

She rolls over the name Azel in her mind to see if she recalls anything. She can’t, and clenches her hands together, frustrated.

 

But she stays silent, knowing Arvis wants to continue talking. He’s always like this, especially whenever he brings up his loathing for the rebels that were occupying Silesse at the moment. Deirdre can’t bring herself to have an opinion on them, since the politics of the world are too complex for her to understand just yet, but she understands them to be bad people, as that was what her lover felt.

 

“But you should know, since you’ve never seen _him_ ,” Arvis’s voice moves around the room as he finishes his pre-bed preparations, “That Azel, even if it is a feminine name, is my brother. My only brother, though we share different mothers, and my only sibling, at that. It’s a shame that he’s gotten himself wrapped up in that nonsense… Had he not, he would be with us now.”

 

Deirdre feels her voice die out.

 

Brother…?

 

“Enough about that. You must be exhausted,” She hears their bed creak, feels an arm wrap around her, and suddenly, she’s enveloped in the warm embrace of her fiance.

 

She sinks into his chest, his scent comforting her as he slowly begins to lay down with her in tow. His hands run through her hair, and she can just barely see his smile at her in the darkness of their room, yet it makes her heart throb, “Rest, my love. Tomorrow, perhaps we can go out to town, if you feel you can.” He whispers to her, “And I’ll have the maids replace that tea with the standard Velthomer tea you usually drink, not the one from Leonster.”

 

Deirdre remains silent, charmed by Arvis’s kindness and passion for her. Yet, in the back of her mind, she feels some sort of worry, some sort of fear. There’s a voice asking her, ever so silently;

 

_Who was it that I remembered today, then?_

 

So she gently shakes her head and, before falling asleep in Arvis’s arms, says, “I don’t think I would mind drinking the Leonster tea again. It was only my pain that prevented me from enjoying it.”

  
  
  
  
  


+++

  
  
  
  
  


The second time Deirdre remembers something, it isn’t because of the fact she’s made herself gulp down cups of tea from Leonster every single day for weeks in an attempt to unlock another memory, but instead because she picks up a healing stave for what she thought was the first time.

 

Deirdre is in the castle’s armory late at night to try and find the blacksmith that’s assigned to assist Arvis’s army, deciding she wants to aid her husband in his war efforts while he deals with his own issues in other parts of the castle. It’s when she’s here searching that she notices a small room hidden by all sorts of equipment and furniture towards the armory’s back. Intrigued, and thinking it to be a possible location of the man she’s looking for, she shifts the loose lances and tomes scattered on the floor over with a cautious foot and pushes away the barricading furniture, opening the door with a bit of strain.

 

The contents of the room aren’t anything but a dusty bunch of broken weaponry, and it’s clear that the location hasn’t been disturbed up until now. Of course, upon her opening the door, some items get disturbed by the sudden motion and clang onto the floor in front of her, one being a cracked metal stave that rolls and lands at her feet.

 

Deirdre sighs to herself, disappointed she can’t do the one thing she set out to do and upset by the fact that she’s creating more of a mess than she should. She sets down the dimmed, dying lantern she had brought with her and crouches down to pick up the stave off the floor to put somewhere else.

 

And it happens again.

 

Upon holding the stave in her hands, she immediately has the same boiling pain she experienced not long ago surge through her, but she does not despair or cry out like she did the first time. She grits her teeth, remains clutching onto the stave, and waits to see what will happen.

 

Sure enough, the pain gets worse, and she unwillingly sinks to the ground.

 

She can’t move, can’t think properly, but still, she feels her heart flutter with a bit of excitement. It’s happening again. She’s going to remember something. She hopes she can see the pink haired girl again to question her, to ask her as much as she can, but she’s still unsure about how much she can interact with her own memories, and feels conflicted even as she braces herself for another episode.

 

But this wasn’t a time to get discouraged. This was what she wanted, what she had been waiting for, what she—

 

“Deirdre. I didn’t know you wanted to take up healing.”

 

Her eyes open. She didn’t even know they were closed.

 

She’s sprawled out on the dusty floor, the stave still in her pale hands, and she slowly lifts herself off the ground when she hears the voice that stands behind her.

 

“Do you need help?” It asks, and a large, gloved hand presents itself next to her face as she gets to her knees.

 

But she knows better, and she shakes her head, “No, I’m fine…” She insists, and she stands on her own. Without preparing herself, figuring it would be best to go into the experience as blind as she did last time, she turns around.

 

The figure that stands in front of her is masculine in build, and is definitely in no way the girl she met before. This stranger towers over her, his white and blue uniform making him appear as if he was royalty, but she knows this isn’t Arvis greeting her. This man has a much different aura than her beloved, and she wonders if it could be the brother he’s mentioned before. When she tries to search his face for features similar to Arvis’s, she internally curses herself as she realizes the room, even with the small light offered from the lantern below her, is too dark to properly make out his face. Too scared to let go of the stave with one hand and risk losing the memory altogether, Deirdre decides to work with what she has.

 

She thinks for a moment, then speaks, “I’m not sure if I want to heal. Magic is more of my strong suit…” She finds herself speaking, “But I had wanted to come here anyways…”

 

The man makes a noise in his throat, as if he’s agreeing with what she’s saying, “Well, it’s up to you. I would never force you to give up your tomes.” He puts his hands to his hips and chuckles, “Though I’m sure Edain, Lachesis, and Ethlyn would love to have all the help they can get, since some of us tend to run them ragged.”

 

That name! That was the rest of the name Deirdre was missing before! The pink haired girl’s name is _Ethlyn_. Deirdre finds herself smiling at the discovery of the name of the mystery girl, though she can’t recall anything special even after learning of it.

 

Truthfully speaking, it only serves to confuse her a bit. Ethlyn, who seems to be a real person not to be confused with Azel, had said how Deirdre was engaged to her brother. If this brother isn’t Arvis, who is it? Had she been engaged before, only to break it off to be with Arvis?

 

She needs more information. So she looks up to the man, or, at least to where she thinks the man ends, since it’s too dark to get a good gauge on his height, and starts, “Speaking of Ethlyn,” The name runs off her tongue easily, as though Deirdre has said it all of her life (and maybe she has!), “She mended my handkerchief for me a while ago, but I never got the opportunity to thank her properly.”

 

The man put his arms down, “Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t mind. She loves that kind of thing, helping others. Just the other day, she had Quan strip out of his uniform so she could sew it back up, and he had to use some of my spare clothes…” He laughs then, a hearty laugh, “I don’t think you saw, since you had to retire earlier that night, but he looked ridiculous. I hadn’t realized I was so much more toned than him until he strode out in my clothes looking like a child.”

 

Like the names _Edain_ and _Lachesis,_ the name _Quan_ brings up no memories or faces, though Deirdre would agree that they all sound rather familiar. It’s possible that she hadn’t known them well enough to form a connection with them, or, at the very least, a prominent memory.

 

The man continues laughing to himself, bringing a hand to where Deirdre assumes is his face. She realizes she isn’t as wound up as she was before, her shoulders slacking and her hands loosely gripping the stave she had in front of her. Though she isn’t sure of his identity, she wouldn’t lie and say this man is unwelcome company. He gives off the same friendly aura that Ethlyn did, but there seems to be more to him that she didn’t have, something she can’t pinpoint. He’s just so radiant, so warm, she can't help but want to reach out to him and embrace him tightly, to melt into him—

 

She tightens her grip suddenly, feeling her face burn hot with embarrassment. What is she thinking?! This man isn’t her husband, yet she’s having such bold thoughts, things she hadn’t even thought of Arvis when they had first met!

 

She lowers her eyes to the floor between them and stares at their feet, too ashamed to try and continue conversation.

 

In their silence, which he notices and decides to keep, the man moves closer to her, stopping just before his chest met with her head. “I know. You’re upset, aren’t you?” He asks, his voice low. It’s the same kind of voice Arvis uses to comfort her, but with double the effect, and she feels her breathing slow, her face still flushed.

 

Deirdre shakes her head, “No, I’m not, I…” She doesn’t know how to explain herself, so she keeps quiet.

 

But the man continues. “It’s okay. I know I… I know I worry you with my insistence on fighting, so you go do something like this... But…” He takes a deep breath, “I want to protect you, our allies, and our country. You understand, don’t you? There’s no way I wouldn’t risk my life for the things I hold dear if it meant I could keep them safe for longer.” He asks.

 

The sincerity in his voice makes Deirdre feel as if she’s about to cry, and she can’t explain the sudden ache she feels in her chest. There’s a lot of things she doesn’t understand here; why this man has decided she’s something he wants to protect, why some part of her wants to be protected by him, and who he was in the first place, a topic she keeps forgetting to go over. Surely, this man can’t be Azel, since he had gotten mixed up with the rebels in Silesse; a turncoat could never care for her so purely, even if she’s his sister-in-law.

 

So is he a relative? A friend? A bodyguard? Or something completely different?

 

And why does she wish he’s something completely different?

 

“I understand, but…” She suddenly speaks, not of her own will, and widens her eyes in confusion. Was this what she had originally said to this man in this memory? Before she can process what’s happening, she continues, “I’m worried about what would happen if you weren’t here after Seliph is born. He’s almost here, and…”

  
  
  


The man leans down in the darkness and kisses her forehead, “I’ll always be here for the two of you. I love you too much to leave.”

 

And then he disappears.

  
  


Deirdre drops the stave and falls to the dusty floor, heaving. Before she knows it, she’s sobbing uncontrollably, her chest throbbing so hard she feels as though her heart will burst.

 

She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t even know what had just happened—

 

No, that isn’t true. She knows that something terrible happened. She can feel it in her heart, in her lungs, in her stomach, something terrible had happened to her before she was in Arvis’s care. Something huge.  Something involving the man she had seen just then.

 

_And… something involving a child…?_

 

Deirdre wraps her arms around her stomach, pressing them into her and forcing herself to breathe calmly. It’s unbearably hard, and she shutters and shakes from the pressure, biting down on her lower lip to focus herself. She nearly draws blood from it, and some part of her wants to just so maybe she could have something to ground her in the moment.

 

_Why does it suddenly feel like her body is hollow? Inside her, wasn’t there a child inside her until recently…?_

 

Deirdre slumps down so she lays completely on the floor, groaning and crying all the same. If she doesn’t concentrate on her breathing now, she thinks she’ll vomit.

 

_His name, she had said the name Seliph. Her child was named Seliph. What did he look like? Did she even remember delivering him? Her body is empty, it’s so empty, what had happened to Seliph?_

 

“Deirdre…?! Oh, Gods, Deirdre…!”

 

And then a single voice breaks through all of her thought, silencing every voice in her mind so she could hear Arvis’s call for her from the other room as she lay crumpled in the doorway.

 

“I’d been searching the castle for you for over an hour, I… I thought you had disappeared, until someone mentioned they had thought they saw you head to the blacksmith’s…”

 

“I, I just—“

 

Deirdre is about to tell him. About her recovery of memories, about how she couldn’t recognize anyone, about how she felt something terrible had happened to her. The girl named Ethlyn, the child— _her_ child named Seliph, the tall man in white.

 

But everything in her body is _screaming_ not to tell him. All the anguish and nerves that were just acting up are giving only one message now, and it is to _LIE._

 

Before now, would she ever have lied to her beloved? Never. She had never told him of her first discovery of memories, since she wanted to surprise him once she had gotten them in order. That isn’t lying. She should just tell him now what has been happening.

 

But she doesn’t ignore her nerves’ command.

 

Deirdre bites her lip and stammers, “I-I came looking for the blacksmith, s-since I know… that you had business with him, and… I came in here, a-and…” She pauses for a moment. She didn’t want to use the same excuse from last time, where she got a headache, just in case he would become suspicious, so she switched it up, “I was nauseous before… and I-I think the old air in here made it worse, so I… when I came in, I felt so s-sick, that I… I-I didn’t mean to worry you, dear...”

 

Without hesitation, Arvis embraces her tightly, Deirdre sighs with relief at the fact that he doesn’t question her.

 

“I apologize for not getting here sooner,” He whispers to her, then slowly picks her up from the ground.

 

“It’s alright, just… Let’s go back. Please.”

  
  
  
  


+++

  
  
  
  


The third time Deirdre remembers something, it isn’t like the other two times, since she always has a bodyguard near her whenever she leaves her chambers now, and Arvis stops importing the tea from Leonster. Instead, it’s because she meets with the man from her memories.

 

It’s a hot day. Ethlyn’s told her once she likes the heat, she remembers that clearly, for some reason. She thinks on that tidbit as she wakes up properly and begins to dress for the day, noticing that Arvis had woken up much earlier than she did.

 

The war would soon be at their doorstep, if it isn’t already there. She smiles softly at the fact that her husband is such a devoted protector of his castle, though she would be sure to make him rest properly after the ordeal is over and done with.

 

For the majority of the afternoon, Deirdre tends to herself and opens the windows of her chambers, letting the hot breeze pour in. She notices the sound of flapping in the air; dracoknights toward the east. Perhaps they’re Arvis’s men, perhaps not. She realized she didn’t know any of the people assisting Arvis personally. In fact, he doesn’t seem to want her to know any of them, not even telling her the names of his commanders when recalling his efforts in the war at night. Maybe Arvis was worried they would scare her. The thought made Deirdre smile sleepily. He really is overprotective, it’s charming.

 

Deirdre is just about to drift off to sleep when a knock wakes her up.

 

“Lady Deirdre,” a voice comes from outside. She doesn’t say anything. So, again, a knock comes from her door, and again, her name is called, a bit more urgent now.

 

Confused, she leaves her bed and opens the door.

 

A man she doesn’t know, decked out in expensive armor with an equally expensive lance in his hand, has come to greet her. She tilts her head, “May I help you?”

 

The man moves out of her way and gestures forward. “Lord Arvis requests you on the battlefield.”

 

A pause.

 

Deirdre shakes her head, “I… I don’t think I’m quite prepared for battle yet. My magic—“

 

“Not for that, my lady.” The man says. “He only wishes to speak with you.”

 

He doesn’t say anything more than that, but seeds of worry plant themselves in her mind. Perhaps the enemy is too powerful, and he wants to speak to her before he goes to fight, so his last moments are with her? It’s such an outlandish thought, but a pit of fear grows in her stomach. Before she can even think twice about it, she slips on her shoes and bolts out of her chambers, following the armored man wherever he plans on taking her.

 

The two exit the castle and go around it, her Deirdre’s run slowing down to a fast walk as she tries to catch her breath. Eventually, she spots her husband— but she doesn’t speed up. Instead, she slows down.

 

In front of Arvis is his own forces, Deirdre recognizes, but there are also people she’s never seen before, wearing no particular uniform, yet unitedly holding contempt for Arvis.

 

Her breath catches in her throat as she realizes these people are the rebels.

 

She slowly makes it to Arvis’s side. The man who had escorted her has now faded back into the crowd, but she knows not where. Arvis is speaking, but Deirdre can’t hear him, for some reason. Her mind is swimming with one thought;

 

Seliph.

 

It confuses her. Why would Seliph be with the rebels? But before she can even question herself, her entire body is on autopilot— she stares at the torsos of those she can see, and sighs with relief when she sees no child coddled in anyone’s arms. He must have been taken somewhere else before they arrived. A wave of calm washes over her when she sees the absence of pink hair, as well.

 

Connecting the dots, Deirdre comes to the conclusion that Ethlyn must have taken Seliph away. She would care for the child, considering the two were friends, wouldn’t she?

 

But wait...Was Ethlyn part of the rebel forces?

 

“This is the son of the man who murdered your father. Lord Vyron’s son, Sigurd.” Arvis tells her, snapping Deirdre out of her thoughts with a squeeze to her shoulder. His voice is a bone chilling whisper she’s never heard from him before. He’s a different man on the battlefield, far from the loving, warm husband who embraces her while they’re alone in their quarters.

 

Arvis tilts his head toward hers. “Go ahead and tell him how you feel.”

 

She looks forward to the general, whom she had been avoiding subconsciously.

 

With his white clothing, his height, and his stance…

 

This man is the one she saw in her memory.

 

The man who cared for her. The man who kissed her. The man who knows of her child.

 

No wonder she had immediately thought of Seliph. And no wonder she had thought of Ethlyn soon after. Bits and pieces of knowledge are coming back to her now. Her past life had been one of crime, in her eyes— she had been part of the rebel army. This man, Sigurd, was her lover. Seliph was their child.

 

Those are all that’s revealed to her in the moment, and she’s too stunned to even speak.

 

“Lord Sigurd…” is the only thing that leaves her lips when she does.

 

What does she say? What does she do? Arvis is too close for her to do anything, he’d probably kill her if she even tried to side with them— they’re the enemy, and she knows the enemy is wrong. But still, she had been part of their forces at one point. Did he know this? She could never tell him, he would leave her for sure, maybe even kill her.

 

But she still wants to do something…

 

Coming out of her own swarming thoughts, Deirdre realizes Sigurd is speaking now, with a face so anguished she takes a step back from him. “This can’t be… Deirdre…! It really is you…!” He clenches his teeth. It’s then that she sees he’s begun to cry. Arvis scoffs at this, as do some of his forces that surround the enemy.

 

But Deirdre’s heart burns in that moment, and she extends a hand out, “Do you… Do you know me? I—“

 

“OF COURSE I DO!” He cuts her off, and she jumps slightly at the outburst, lowering her hand and bringing it to her chest. He takes a few steps forward then, “YOU’RE MY—“

  
  


And then Arvis steps between the two, bringing his hand to his tome and pushing Deirdre back further. “That’s enough.”

  
  


She shouldn’t be bold with him, she knows. But still, Deirdre puts a hand to Arvis’s forearm and tries to move forward. “A-Arvis, please… Let me…” She stammers out, suddenly realizing she’s shaking.

 

He turns his head to look behind him, speaking in a soothing voice. However, his eyes are stone cold, a warning. “He’s a dangerous man, Deirdre. You must leave before the situation gets out of control.”

 

“But… Just a little more time, please, it’s all I need—“

 

“Deirdre.” His voice is impatient. She shouldn’t test him. She shouldn’t, but...

 

She squeezes his arm, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. “Arvis, please! I—“

 

“DEIRDRE.” His voice booms now, and she flinches. Usually, he would apologize for something like this immediately, but he did no such thing now. Instead, he merely turns back to face forward, locking eyes with Sigurd as he speaks. “I will fetch someone to take you back to our room.”

 

With a flick of his wrist, a man from the surrounding forces comes to Arvis’s side. And then, without words, he moves to Deirdre’s side and puts a hand to her shoulder. Almost immediately, she swats it away, and that act only intrugues Arvis. Perhaps even makes him happy, that his wife has a fire burning in her, as well. But if he has anything to say, he doesn’t say it. The man yanks Deirdre away by the arm and the two begin the walk back to the castle.

 

It’s only a minute’s walk. But to Deirdre, it feels like an eternity, what with how much she’s thinking.

 

She doesn’t remember everything. There are such large gaps in her memory, she can only recall the smallest fragments of information. But she remembers— she _knows_ she had loved Sigurd. There had been a life she had where she was his, and he was her’s.

 

Of course, she isn’t sure about their relationship now. She definitely feels something for the man, however shrouded in mystery he may be, but it seems wrong, or at the very least, forced. Like she’s trying to make herself care for him. Was it just because the idea of loving another man was foreign to her? And could she possibly love both Sigurd and Arvis at once? She could never bring her past up to her husband ever, that much she understood very well.

 

She doesn’t have the time to figure everything out right now, but she can’t let it end like this. If she did, what was even the purpose of trying to talk to him in the first place? Just to briefly exchange words and have her dragged away? There was no meaning to it.

 

If he was to die, he should die with some peace in his mind, however small.

 

Deirdre rips herself away from the man taking her away and turns around, hoping to catch Sigurd’s eyes. Luckily, she does, and she mouths to him,

 

“...I’m so sorry. I love you.”

 

His eyes widen.

 

And then without a sound, Sigurd crumples to the ground and accepts his defeat.

 

Deirdre begins to regret ever trying to recover her memories, choking back sobs as she walks away from him, the heat on her back.


End file.
